Walk-in centre will move to Royal Shrewsbury Hospital as plan approved
A walk-in centre that serves 25,000 patients a year will move to the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital, health bosses decided today.
Relocating the Monkmoor walk in centre next to the A&E department will create a "one stop shop" for patients with urgent injuries and illness and reduce waiting times, said board members at this afternoon's crunch meeting.
The centre's GP service, which has 3,000 registered patients, will remain where it is.
Dozens of objectors turned out to state their case for keeping the walk in centre where it is.
The decision was made at an extraordinary meeting of Shropshire Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) held at Shrewsbury Town Football Club today.
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Earlier Miles Kenny, Shrewsbury town councillor for the Underdale ward, said the move would be "a huge loss".
He said: "This walk-in centre covers people living in areas of the town who are more prone to ill health, less likely to keep hospital appointments and find getting to the hospital difficult.
"Not only does it provide medical help, advice is also available on housing issues, stopping smoking, child care and many other topics. It provides a very important role in the community.
"It would be a huge loss for the people of Shropshire, we should be having more of these sort of centres, not less. It is a brilliant service."
There is a "strong clinical consensus" that having a primary care-led service alongside the emergency department would improve Shropshire's urgent care provision, said the report written by Emma Pyrah, programme and service redesign lead in unscheduled care at the CCG.
Under the plans, patients turning up at A&E, other than those arriving by ambulance, will register at a combined reception desk and will be streamed to either the walk-in service or emergency department by a nurse or nurse practitioner.
The project team has worked out the walk-in element of the Monkmoor centre amounts to 25,000 attendances a year.
The team has based its projections for the move on 70 per cent of current walk-in activity transferring with the service from Monkmoor.
The emergency department clinicians have indicated that up to 65 per cent of existing walk-in attendances could have their needs met within the urgent care centre.
Parking pressures as a result of the move to the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital will be counteracted by the transfer of Women's and Children's Services to the Princess Royal Hospital in Telford.
